Six Tragedies in Tandem
by PastelDreame
Summary: Multi-verse, therefore multiple pairings. Ukyo-centric. Some non-canon, grim point-of-view stuff. Chapters take place in different worlds, and read in no particular order. Rated for explicit descriptions of suicide, violence, and other considerably unpleasant themes.
1. Jumping

C.L.O.V.E.R 'Verse

 **Six Tragedies in Tandem**

 **Part |:** Jumping

 **Author's Note:** Some non-canon, grim point of view stuff. Ukyo-centric. Each chapter takes place in a different world and there is no specific world order, so it's not really continual. This is the Clover world. I don't know why, but each time I try to write something for this series, the result is some variation of the same thing.

So, here we go.

.

.

.

The street is just a tiny strip of pavement from this perspective.

Narrow and gray, with a deceptively smooth appearance. The toes of his heavy boots peek out over the edge of the roof as he rocks with a gentle idleness, resignedly calm. It's the umpteenth time, and he has no demons to whisper urges of a free fall.

He _is_ the demon, and indeed, his destination lies fifty or so feet below.

The late afternoon sunlight glints on the metal frame of her hospital window. He has to tilt his head just slightly to get a good look at it, but that's the one.

It's been five minutes since finished his trek up to the adjacent roof, but he's already thought of at least ten different scenarios in which he, by some second miracle, makes it to the other side. All of them involve climbing into her room, and at first, it's just to make sure she's there. Assuring she is alive, loved and on her way to a happy life seems to be the most he can do anymore.

Infallible torment, to keep finding himself completely out of place in her presence when all he wanted from the start was the privilege of being at her side again. He'd lost his mind maybe two hundred cycles ago, but if there was a chance the next one would be the _right_ one, then...

The tepid breeze stirs his long, mint hair. He feels the weight of the braid against his shoulder and smiles helplessly as he recalls the bashful way they'd looked at each other and appraised the similarity between them the first time they'd met. That's all it'd been–a similarity with no particular depth.

Baseless as it is, he would need every digit and the stars in the sky to count on all the times she'd looked his way on the street–all the times he'd held his breath as he fantasized a knowing look shifting in those round, curious green eyes.

 _"I think it suits you, too, Ukyo, if you don't mind me saying so."_

 _"Aha...Do you really think so?"_

 _"I do."_

 _"...Thank you."_

Just his hopeful imagination.

Once, he'd become so deluded he'd traumatized her by getting hit by a truck neither one of them had noticed approaching on the road. It was something he rarely looked back on, partly out of shame, the other part grief.

The look of horror contorting her quickly paling face...And god, the way she screamed...

The cycles only seemed to grow more merciless. In effect, he lost himself slowly, just trying to find some peace within each one of them.

One road split into two, then three, all seeming unlikely to ever meet again.

 _One way; one way only_ , and how did it become _this_ way, anyway? When he looked back, everything seemed smaller, but it was all there...

 _They_ were there.

All he had to do was move in reverse...

Yet, if by some chance he found himself inside that room, on the other side of that street, standing over that bed, it would be what little rationale he had left, tucked away in the place where he fought to keep his sanity that kept him from stealing her away. He'd tried and succeeded in some awful things before he'd reached this hopeless plateau.

Sleeping under bridges, riding on the train for a while, sometimes finding some place quiet just to break down into a sobbing mess for an hour or so. However little they helped, he took measures to keep himself in check once he found himself in another crushing scenario.

He'd been fortunate enough that his desperation had never wound him so tightly that he'd resorted to something like kidnapping. Such an idea weighed heavy and grim, dead in the middle of his conscious. Ugly, and appalling, however it appealed to the rawest, most frantic part of Ukyo. The piece of him drowning in darkness, dreaming of vibrant days, a warm, smaller hand in his, and no fear of whether he'd wake up tomorrow only to remember that his lover is gone.

Before he realizes it, he's fully contemplating what it would take to get onto the roof of the hospital building. When his feet tip forward and his weight follows with him, he folds his outstretched arms into his chest as though embracing his shame.

As the street expands all too quickly below, Ukyo is reminded why this is called the easy way out.


	2. Inundating

D.I.A.M.O.N.D 'Verse

 **Six Tragedies in Tandem**

 **Part ||:** Inundating

 **Author Note:** No specific time frame. This is a death in a Toma-centric universe. Not necessarily _the_ Diamond world.

 **Warning:** Mentions of murder, death, intoxication and sexual assault.

* * *

 _They say the easy way out also leads back in._

The photographer jerks awake to a torrential downpour. Fat raindrops pelt his skin and sting like tiny, falling bullets. His wet clothes chill him, and the long tangles of his hair float around in the dirty, rain-filled dips in the street.

Pretty soon he'll drown and sink into the earth, only to return like a scorned weed.

Blinking the water from his eyes, Ukyo sits up. He stares at the open vista, vast and blue. There's no rain; in fact, there's hardly a cloud in the sky.

Instead, he finds himself at the edge of someone's evenly cut lawn, just within showering range of their automatic sprinkler. It explains the puddles, and the heady smell of soil.

Ukyo wrings the water from his hair and the dismal look on his face grows more severe as he gets a look at the property he's found himself on. The mauve one-story with its steep, brown roof and two-car garage. The little bed of plum-colored flowers under the window of the dining room–the name of the plant he still doesn't know.

This house whose family he holds nothing against.

And yet–

"Don't be out too late, dear. Toma said he'd give us a call tonight."

A car door shuts after an affirmative reply and a brief exchange of words between a familiar married couple.

Ukyo doesn't look at the steel grey sedan, however, even as it backs smoothly down the driveway. He's practically launching himself across the street even before it reaches the curb and takes off without noticing him.

.

Ukyo walks for a while, and it's quiet.

The sun and wind slowly dry his clothes and hair. They chase the chill away from his skin. It's a fresh cycle, and he almost feels like just another stranger on the street.

He's just another passerby, a faceless no one, like in those snapshots he took when he tried his photographic talents on people for the first time.

Unfocused, awkward and mysterious...

Except, he doesn't really blend.

He never will.

.

.

 _She's reckless in this world_ , he thinks, as she opens the door to greet Toma later in the evening. At the bus stop not too far away, Ukyo sucks in a shallow breath that does absolutely nothing to counteract the sensation of his stomach diving. The blond places his hand on the door frame, leans in ever so slightly and tilts his head as if trying to get a nonchalant look at the apartment's interior over her shoulder. She blinks, flustered by his sudden nearness and reflexively takes a step back.

Golden eyes narrow minutely before they drift back to her blushing face–a telltale shrewdness for devising trouble–and then Toma, who is not as gentle as he pretends to be, remembers to look contrite at his blunder.

 _...No_.

The world-traveler closes his eyes against the glare of the porch light, just for a moment, and redacts his initial thoughts. Toma steps through the threshold with a shrug and a disarming smile, and the door clicks shut with a finality Ukyo isn't just imagining as the bus pulls up to block off the scene.

Toma is simply too clever not to overcome her.

.

.

.

The ride to nowhere is long, and graces him with zero distractions.

Moonlight flickers through the windows between shadows as the bus proceeds on a relatively normal-looking back street. As it rounds a corner, Ukyo's eyes follow the narrow trench that snakes between one neighborhood and the next. Grassy hills that are long, brief and steep, brooking little patience for indecision.

On the left side, behind the fence of an abandoned backyard, the elongated ghost of an old path seems to trek forever, and it calls out to Ukyo in its loneliness.

The driver lets him off when he insists. Ukyo waits for the bus to disappear into the night, and then he walks over to the dirt trail.

 _You should follow me_ , it seems to say as he approaches. The photographer can think of no reason to disagree.

So, he does.

.

.

 _They won't meet this time, and the guilt Ukyo will recall from leaving her to that awful fate will never leave him._

 _Unsolvable. Unstoppable. Another twisted end that does not grant mercy_ _–a window for intervention.  
_

 _._

 _Bitter pill grains swirling around under the guise of vitamin-enhanced grape juice._

 _A limp hand grasping uselessly against a table edge, and a body sliding off its chair and collapsing on the floor; a failed attempt to try and anchor itself.  
_

 _Buttons pop, jostling a prone form, and cool, trembling fingers evict the warmth from too-flushed skin. A line of saliva trails from paling lips that gasp unintelligibly as a weight settles over, eyes fluttering heavily in detached disbelief.  
_

 _That face and those sounds..._

Were they not just enjoying dinner?

"Take me. I'll take _all_ of you..."

 _At a time like **this**...Those aren't the words I wanted to hear from your mouth...  
_

Limbs trapped against the mattress jolt and still, back arching and dropping boneless on an unmade bed. The sound of erratic breathing seems to scrape harshly against every corner of the room.

A catch in his throat as his heartbeat slows, body settling into the warped afterglow.

.

.

The one tucked beneath him is so cold, and blue.

.

.

.

Lying at the deeper end of the trench, Ukyo watches a thin, brown snake wriggle along the muck. Finding his body an obstruction, it pauses, rises up and vehemently latches its fangs onto the rim of his ear. The reptile has already escaped into the tall grass and disappeared by the time he can register the needling pain and the pulsing, telltale blur in his vision. Tears leak from his eyes and there's not enough air in the world to satisfy his lungs, but Ukyo dies knowing the numbness he feels isn't just the poison assaulting his system.


	3. Hysteria

H.E.A.R.T 'Verse

 **Six Tragedies in Tandem**

 **Part |||:** Hysteria

 **Author Note:** Hysteria in 'Heart'verse'. Not from Ukyo's point of view, whoops. Just the heroine succumbing to her amnesia. Maybe I'll write a part two of this with Ukyo included.

* * *

The birds chirp outside the only window in the white room.

 _White is a nice color, after all_ , she thinks for the tenth time this week, and she almost has herself convinced now.

This fluorescence and the daylight; they are blinding forces. Together, they are a combination made to purge.

He insists on opening the blinds. _"Sunlight is good for you,"_ he smiles softly at her, and for some reason, she is certain he's never smiled at her that way before.

She never objects. And for her patience, try as he might, it stunts their one-sided conversations.

.

.

.

 ** _He._**

Really, just the thought of that person...

Her body breaks out in a cool sweat. Every part of her is vibrating. It feels like there's an earthquake occurring inside her.

She leans over the bed as quickly as the upper half of her body will allow where a pail sits for these frequent episodes. She thinks she can still feel the juts of rock making impact with her stomach on the way down.

 _Falling...Clawing...Grabbing..._

All the way down.

.

Her nausea vanishes as quickly as it came, but its absence doesn't bring her any relief.

Disturbed, she curls loosely into herself beneath the sterile bed sheets and just tries not to breathe.

Not breathing sometimes is good. Not breathing sometimes slow things down; like her heart. Her thoughts.

She can feel her body beginning to relax...

The door opens and she stills against the bed, eyes glazed and staring at the wall across the room like a frightened animal. She doesn't need to look to know who her visitor is. Things like his scent, the shifting of his coat against his body, and the familiarity of his shuffling stride will always tell her.

Always inform her, no matter how much she would protest to being ignorant.

He exists and he is never going to leave her.

The bed dips with his weight. It's too late to pretend that he isn't there now. He is a bold splash of color in her white world. He is movement–too much movement to be mistaken for a trick of the eye.

His gaze flicks over her and it is magnetic, attracting her slowly, but surely into a quietly pleading, burning hypnosis. Amber and carmine. Whisky and wine.

 _He's not like his father!_ a voice in her head whispers. It sounds so certain that, for some time, she has felt inclined to believe it.

He would never hurt anyone and he would definitely never kill anyone...especially not her.

Indeed, some vague and distant part of her also seems to believe that. But with every passing day in this room which she is growing increasingly accustomed to, everything that she may or may not have understood at one time is becoming indistinguishable.

For ever since she woke up there has only been three constants: her startling confusion, the chirping of the birds and the white.

And that is fine, she thinks. If that's all there is–if that's all there ever was, then that would be just fine. Everything else is just too confusing, too frightening to begin to try and understand.

Shin reaches out a hand to slowly stroke her cheek and his expression is a piteous one. She slaps his hand away wordlessly and twists the upper half of her body toward the window. Fear ripples along the surface of her stony facade as she silently endures his frustrated reaction, but she is almost too excited to care when he stops trying to call for her attention until his throat is raw. She doesn't cry this time when the door clicks shut behind him; doesn't feel the strange wave of regret that usually follows after rejecting his gentle advances.

.

.

.

A smile curves her lips as stares into the glow beyond the only window in the room. The light is so bright that it blinds her; it blinds her from all.

.

.

The twittering of the birds continues.


End file.
